GADID.F.. 



described, has hitherto been confounded by all writers : we 

 presume this is the species, which, under the belief that it 

 was the common one, Cuvicr says is abundant in the Me- 

 diterranean." 



It is to be regretted that Mr. Swainson has not mentioned 

 the characters upon which he founds his distinction between 

 the Mediterranean and the Northern Hake ; the name and 

 the figure given, which is here copied, are the only guides. 

 If the specific term sinuatus is intended to refer to the form 

 of the dorsal and anal fins as a distinguishing character, it 

 may be desirable to state that the figures of the common 

 Hake, as given by Dull am el and Bloch, present the same 

 peculiarities, particularly in reference to the elongation of 

 some of the posterior rays of the dorsal and anal fins. Pen- 

 nant, in describing our British Hake, says of the second 

 dorsal fin, " of which the last rays are the highest." Mr. 

 Couch, who lives on a part of our coast which abounds with 

 Hakes occasionally, sends me word, in answer to my inquiry, 

 that the new figure here employed at the commencement of 

 this subject is a good representation of the general form of 

 our Hake, but that the degree of extension of the fin-rays 

 and the character of the waved line formed by the margin of 

 the fins are varied in different specimens of the fish. Dr. 

 Parnell, in his minute description of the Hake found in the 

 Frith of Forth, says of the second dorsal fin, " the first 

 twenty-two rays of equal length, as long as the sixth ray of 

 the first dorsal, the twenty-third to the twenty-seventh rapid- 



